The Future Is Where He Will Spend the Rest of His Death

Gregory Walcott, star of what is unfairly called the worst film of all time, has died at the age of 87. The character actor had done several TV westerns when he was offered the lead in a low-budget sci-fi flick about aliens reanimating the dead. The mess of a movie by Writer-Director-Producer Edward D. Wood, Jr., replete with Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson and horror hostess Vampira wandering through a soundstage cemetery and shifting cardboard headstones, Bela Lugosi dying in mid-production and being replaced with Wood’s wife’s chiropractor, idiot cops adjusting their hat brims with their revolvers, TV psychic Criswell’s incoherent opening narration, and flying saucers on strings, known as Plan 9 From Outer Space is regarded as the worst film of all time by people who haven’t seen The Room or Cutthroat Island. Walcott was generally embarrassed by the film, but continued in minor roles in films like The Eiger Sanction and Norma Rae. Eventually he accepted his legacy, appearing in a cameo in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood and giving a copy of his script to the owners of Plan 9 Alehouse to use as wallpaper in the men’s room.